Putin is using elite troops in disguise to just walk in and take over the Ukraine.
Assad, after laughingly agreeing to give up his chemical weapons, is gassing his people again.
Al Qaeda is posting their undisguised pep rallies on Youtube.
Europe is laughing at Obama.
His own lock, stock, and barrel Senate Democrats don't want him or his programs anywhere near their re-election campaigns.
The ACA is heading towards a disaster while he pronounces it a success.
He is paying more people more money for more years not to work.
Most of the public considers him dishonest.

WTH is it going to take to wake this boob up to his virtually total failure as a president?

In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers created a system of checks and balances and competing influences among the president and Congress, the states and the federal government, and billionaire liberal donor Tom Steyer.

Tom Steyer isn’t Senate majority leader, or chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, or even Senate president pro tem. He’s merely the man who wants to spend $100 million on Democrats this year and who hates the Keystone pipeline.

President Obama famously boasted that he has a pen and a phone that give him the power to make Washington act. Except, evidently, if Tom Steyer doesn’t want him to.

Last week, the Obama administration yet again delayed its long-delayed determination whether or not to approve the Keystone pipeline, a nondecision strategically announced not just on a Friday, but a Friday that is one of the holiest days of the year. The administration had enough self-awareness to know its latest exercise of executive inaction was nothing to be proud of.

Even in the mainstream media, almost everyone assumed the move was entirely political. The project has undergone multiple reviews beginning in 2009 and always gotten a clean bill of health.

The administration cited a lawsuit in Nebraska that might affect the path of the pipeline as reason for the new delay. This is an absurd fig leaf. A fight over the pipeline in one state doesn’t affect whether the State Department — which is involved because the project crosses an international boundary — can determine whether the pipeline is in the national interest or not.

One theory is that the White House thinks the delay is good politics because it allows endangered Red State Democrats who favor the pipeline to distance themselves from the president by attacking his foot-dragging. If so, this is highly counterintuitive political strategy: We’ll do you a big favor by making another in a series of indefensible nondecisions that are unpopular in your state.

The simpler explanation is that Tom Steyer, as well as the liberal donors and climate activists allied with him, is getting his way. They were always an influential constituency in the Democratic Party, but became even more so a few months ago when Steyer pledged $50 million of his own money to Democrats in the midterms, to be matched by another $50 million from other donors.

In a punishing year for Democrats, this was rare good news. Why mess it up by deciding Keystone on the merits?

For all the complaints about money in politics, it’s unusual that a high-profile decision seems to have such a direct connection to one big-time donor. This isn’t sneaking a small-but-consequential provision into a 1,000-page bill in the dead of night. It’s blocking a project in broad daylight that is important to a close ally (Canada), that will instantly create thousands of construction jobs, that will send a signal to Vladimir Putin that we are serious about developing energy resources and that will have no net effect on global warming (as the latest State Department review established).

Steyer deserves perverse credit for his success defying what would otherwise be uncontroversial public policy. Rarely does a meritless cause get so much traction.

But union workers can be forgiven for not appreciating Steyer’s virtuosity. The president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America went further than any Republican in denouncing the latest delay. He called it a “gutless move,” “politics at its worst” and “another low blow to the working men and women of our country.”

Needless to say, Steyer hasn’t received a fraction of the press coverage of the Koch brothers, whose funding of conservative groups has made them an obsession for The New York Times and other outlets. Steyer isn’t nearly as interesting — he’s just the guy with effective veto power over a major infrastructure project clearly in the national interest.

In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers created a system of checks and balances and competing influences among the president and Congress, the states and the federal government, and billionaire liberal donor Tom Steyer.

Tom Steyer isn’t Senate majority leader, or chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, or even Senate president pro tem. He’s merely the man who wants to spend $100 million on Democrats this year and who hates the Keystone pipeline.

President Obama famously boasted that he has a pen and a phone that give him the power to make Washington act. Except, evidently, if Tom Steyer doesn’t want him to.

Last week, the Obama administration yet again delayed its long-delayed determination whether or not to approve the Keystone pipeline, a nondecision strategically announced not just on a Friday, but a Friday that is one of the holiest days of the year. The administration had enough self-awareness to know its latest exercise of executive inaction was nothing to be proud of.

Even in the mainstream media, almost everyone assumed the move was entirely political. The project has undergone multiple reviews beginning in 2009 and always gotten a clean bill of health.

The administration cited a lawsuit in Nebraska that might affect the path of the pipeline as reason for the new delay. This is an absurd fig leaf. A fight over the pipeline in one state doesn’t affect whether the State Department — which is involved because the project crosses an international boundary — can determine whether the pipeline is in the national interest or not.

One theory is that the White House thinks the delay is good politics because it allows endangered Red State Democrats who favor the pipeline to distance themselves from the president by attacking his foot-dragging. If so, this is highly counterintuitive political strategy: We’ll do you a big favor by making another in a series of indefensible nondecisions that are unpopular in your state.

The simpler explanation is that Tom Steyer, as well as the liberal donors and climate activists allied with him, is getting his way. They were always an influential constituency in the Democratic Party, but became even more so a few months ago when Steyer pledged $50 million of his own money to Democrats in the midterms, to be matched by another $50 million from other donors.

In a punishing year for Democrats, this was rare good news. Why mess it up by deciding Keystone on the merits?

For all the complaints about money in politics, it’s unusual that a high-profile decision seems to have such a direct connection to one big-time donor. This isn’t sneaking a small-but-consequential provision into a 1,000-page bill in the dead of night. It’s blocking a project in broad daylight that is important to a close ally (Canada), that will instantly create thousands of construction jobs, that will send a signal to Vladimir Putin that we are serious about developing energy resources and that will have no net effect on global warming (as the latest State Department review established).

Steyer deserves perverse credit for his success defying what would otherwise be uncontroversial public policy. Rarely does a meritless cause get so much traction.

But union workers can be forgiven for not appreciating Steyer’s virtuosity. The president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America went further than any Republican in denouncing the latest delay. He called it a “gutless move,” “politics at its worst” and “another low blow to the working men and women of our country.”

Needless to say, Steyer hasn’t received a fraction of the press coverage of the Koch brothers, whose funding of conservative groups has made them an obsession for The New York Times and other outlets. Steyer isn’t nearly as interesting — he’s just the guy with effective veto power over a major infrastructure project clearly in the national interest.

Those with wealth, of any political persuasion, will spread their money around to advance their agenda. After all, money equates to speech. Those with the most money are heard above the din of the less privileged. Welcome to America. Are you surprised by this?

What qualifies as reasoning in the conservative world--conclusions. Did Techno notice the bias in his citation with this conclusion--which is actually an assumption, not reasoning?

Quote:

a major infrastructure project clearly in the national interest.

Now the pipeline may or may not be in the national interest, and I think it will eventually be approved. I also think that Obama's punting on this is a combination of political positioning for the 2014 mid-terms, and more practically, having a chit to play as his administration moves forward on measures to reduce carbon emissions. But there is a legal structure, with specific objectives, for a national interest finding. The impacts of alternative pipeline routes--which has been much of the battle ground--and the impacts of increased, or not increased, carbon emissions, need to be compared. There are, of course, alternative pipeline routes that would take the oil through Canadian ports like Vancouver. So much of this is about who pays, who benefits, and competitive advantages. The Koch's, for example, are heavily invested in the American pipeline alternatives.

But whatever Obama's political motives are for the current delay, he has far more integrity than the GOP. At the end of the process, Obama will make a decision, and he has the courage to say no to Steyer. Tell me a GOP member who has the courage to say no to the Koch's. Just one.

But whatever Obama's political motives are for the current delay, he has far more integrity than the GOP.

Really! What I have also heard is that the 100 million is contingent upon NOT approving the pipeline. Real or not, campaign $$$$$$ is playing a roll in his decision. I know, it happens on both sides, but that doesn't justify be bought by big donors regardless of your side.

Yes of course Obama cares. Last night he dined at a $300 a plate sushi restaurant. On earth day he burned up thousands of pounds of fuel in AF1 to get there.

May I remind the left that when Nixon decided to go on one of his few vacations (Florida), he booked a flight on Pan Am. Secret service had a cow. Even one of the most corrupt presidents, doesn't hold a candle to the morally corrupt Obama. At least Nixon cared about the taxpayer.

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